hunt." He told me that any criticism of
his role is "both politically motivated and
motivated by certain large business in-
terests," and is "completely without merit."
When I asked Icahn about the nature
of his special-adviser role, he maintained
that what had initially appeared to be a
broad policy portfolio was, in practice,
much more limited. "The only sugges-
tions I have ever made throughout this
whole period were on the s issue," he
said. No railcars? No liquid natural gas?
Icahn says that he has not had a single
conversation with anyone in the Admin-
istration about regulations in these in-
dustries, or in any others in which he has
holdings. He acknowledges advocating
on the s issue. But he maintains that
this was not problematic, because, though
the refiner he owns might benefit from
a shift in the point of obligation, it would
not be the only company that would wel-
come such a change. In Icahn's telling,
this makes him practically disinterested.
The White House o cial who would,
in theory, police Icahn's status is Stefan
Passantino, the deputy counsel to the Pres-
ident for compliance and ethics. Passan-
tino was responsible for "counselling"
Kellyanne Conway, the Presidential ad-
viser, after she sparked an outcry by pro-
moting Ivanka Trump's apparel line during
a Fox News interview. In the view of
Trump Administration o cials, Passan-
tino laid to rest the Icahn controversy with
his February declaration that Icahn was
"simply a private citizen." Kelly Love, the
White House spokeswoman, said, "Mr.
Icahn does not have a position with the
Administration, nor a policymaking role."
It is ironic for Passantino to rule on
the controversy surrounding Icahn's con-
flicts of interest---because Passantino has
a conflict of his own. On June th, Wal-
ter Shaub, the head of the O ce of Gov-
ernment Ethics, wrote a letter pointing
out that Passantino, in his mandatory
disclosures as a full-time White House
employee, noted that before joining the
Administration he had been a corporate
lawyer. He listed the clients for whom
he had done work in the two years prior
to joining the government. One of them
was Icahn. At the time that Passantino
was initially queried about the propriety
of Icahn's position, he made no mention
of this relationship.
Two weeks after Shaub sent his let-
ter, he resigned, saying that he could no
longer meaningfully perform the func-
tion for which the O ce of Government
Ethics was designed. Shaub warned that
the United States was facing a "historic
ethics crisis."The White House released
a statement lashing out at Shaub, dis-
missing his concerns as "grandstanding."
For all of President Trump's fulmina-
tions about the danger of leaks, his White
House has a bizarre habit of authorizing
spokespeople to talk with the press on
the condition that their names not be
mentioned. When I asked the White
House for an interview with Passantino,
to discuss how he had vetted Icahn's po-
sition, a spokeswoman replied that Pas-
santino had been "recused on any mat-
ters related to Carl Icahn," because Icahn
was a former client. This was the first I
had heard of any recusal, and I asked when
it had happened. On the first day of the
Administration, the spokeswoman replied.
If the White House spokeswoman was
correct, then at the time that Passantino
issued the Administration's judgment that
Icahn's role posed no ethical conflicts he
was already recused from o ering legal
advice on precisely that question. "That's
not how recusal works," Shaub told me.
"Recusing yourself means not delivering
the White House's legal theories about
whether Icahn is an employee." The
spokeswoman maintained that, when Pas-
santino made his declaration, he wasn't
making a legal judgment, but "merely re-
iterating a fact." Richard Painter, who
used to hold Passantino's job, told me that
the White House's repeated assertion that
Icahn is simply a private citizen is "bogus,"
adding, "The ethics shop in this White
House is not very good."
If Passantino never weighed in on the
terms of Icahn's unusual appointment,
surely some other White House lawyer
looked into the matter. I asked who that
was. The spokeswoman responded that
it "wasn't necessary" to perform any such
legal vetting of Icahn's role.
For the moment, Icahn's push on the
point of obligation appears to have
stalled. But, in July, CVR announced its
most recent quarterly results, and once
again the firm was spending a great deal
of money to purchase s. On a call
with investors, CVR's chief executive,
John Lipinski, cited the volatility of
prices. "When there's news in the mar-
ket, it goes up and it goes down," he said.
Lipinski complained, several times, about
speculators who were "manipulating" the
price of the credits. When he was asked
about CVR's own speculative trading of
s, he said that he didn't "intend to
go into any detail" on such questions.
prices, which hit a low of thirty
cents following the news of Icahn's deal
with Dinneen, have since tripled. In the
coming weeks, the E.P.A. is expected to
issue a formal rejection of proposals to
shift the point of obligation. According
to Reuters, some investors on Wall Street
are now betting against Icahn---by short-
ing CVR stock.
Dinneen, for one, does not anticipate
that Icahn will simply let the issue go.
" You're allowed to keep collecting the teeth, but we're going to
call you a fairy to make it sound less terrifying."